MIDNIGHT

At the stroke of midnight

One day slips beneath the next;

Clock sounds rumble from a

Subduction zone where the crust of time

Descends into a molten past;

Percussion waves reverberate in the dark,

Move across folded minds,

Shake out the sun-built edifices, and

Crumble their brick and mortar walls.

When all are flat and dark,

When all are scrambled,

When all are broken,

Survivors crawl out of the rubble,

Heave up to the surface in desperate bursts,

Like deep sea divers who rise and float

Briefly among the debris,

Before they hobble across the land,

Turn back to see the extinguished,

Plod through the uproar and gather round

For the break of day.   

© cmheuer, 2014 

PHOTOGRAPH IT

Perhaps a spirit has been stolen when the shutter snaps

Taking a split second of light and freezing it on a flat surface;

Even if it is a scene and not a portrait,

Ariel, imprisoned in a tree, was freed.

Thus a spirit is engraved and exposed

To my eye, as a memory is to my mind,

Point of view and visage, stage and curtain,

Intercepted and pinned,

Like butterflies caught in a net,

Like words held to a page,

Each fleet-footed spark

Catches fire and burns away

The lost and unseen ashes

From which the image can rise again

From the depths of light. 

© cmheuer, 2014

SEASHELLS

Buried in sand, our toes divine them like a water stick,

Surf-polished exoskeletons, four layers deep,

Sculpted in whorls and terraces when the

Ocean floods and wind-dragged waves

Dash back to the sea.

Bones wash ashore,

Lie disguised by grace of form;

Such outer shells, like pearls,

Conjure up thieves of ocean scraps,

Bait our steps along the shore,

Surround our eyes

With structural remains

In a low-tidal charnel house

Left adrift before an open sky and dune of clouds.

Relics sift out,

Like fossils unearthed and prized,

For a history of carrion,

Whose rigid shapes are borne upon their backs

And set upon display,

While our hidden bones are

Buried earthen deep and

Marked with name on stone.

© cmheuer, 2014